SAUDI ARABIA. Activists campaigned Tuesday for the release of a Saudi woman jailed for driving, while another woman reportedly flouted the ultra-conservative kingdom's ban on women taking the wheel.

A Facebook page titled "We are all Manal al-Sharif: a call for solidarity with Saudi women's rights," had been "liked" by over 14,000 people on Tuesday.

"It is not a revolution, it is not a plot, it is not a gathering and it is not a protest -- we are only requesting to drive our cars," one post on the page said.

And a petition launched by Gulf intellectuals calling for the release of Sharif had by Tuesday garnered over 300 signatures.

The petition, addressed to Saudi King Abdullah, demanded the release of Sharif, "pending a clear decision on the question of the right of women to drive" in the kingdom.

Sharif was arrested on Saturday while driving in the Eastern Province city of Al-Khobar, a day after she posted a footage on the video-sharing website YouTube showing her behind the wheel.

Although traffic police released her after a few hours, the 32-year-old computer security consultant was later re-apprehended from her home by criminal investigation police, her lawyer Adnan al-Saleh said, and ordered held for five days.

"Manal did not want to harm anyone. She just wanted to prove that it was possible for a woman to drive in Saudi Arabia," Wajiha Huwaidar, a women's rights activist and writer who filmed the video of Sharif driving.

"I hope she will be released," Huwaidar said.

Huwaidar herself is a veteran of driving in Saudi Arabia. In 2008, she posted a video on YouTube showing her driving in the kingdom's Eastern Province. She escaped arrest by not coming across a police patrol.

She said a venture on Thursday when she accompanied Sharif driving was a success, but that Sharif may have subsequently been watched, leading to her arrest while driving on Saturday.

"Manal is divorced and has a five-year-old son," and though she has a United States driver's licence, she has had to turn to sometimes hard-to-find taxis for transport in Saudi Arabia, Huwaidar said.

She said Sharif belongs to a group of activists who are campaigning on Facebook for women to be permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia.

But asked if she thought the movement would amount to a broader push for reform, Huwaidar said no, as "there is no real civil society in Saudi Arabia."

Human Rights Watch has called for King Abdullah to order that Sharif be released "immediately," and slammed the driving ban.

"Arresting a woman who drove her family around in a car and then showed it online opens Saudi Arabia to condemnation -- and, in fact, to mockery -- around the world," HRW senior Middle East researcher Christoph Wilcke said in a statement.

"King Abdullah should end Saudi Arabia's pariah status in the world as the sole country banning women from driving," Wilcke said.

According to Saudi daily Al-Watan, a 37-year-old Saudi woman who had repeated Sharif's experiment in driving in the town of Al-Ras, northeast of Riyadh, was arrested at a supermarket by a police patrol accompanied by members of the religious police.

She was driving with her mother and aunt at the time, according to the newspaper, which said she was released a few hours later.

Sharif's lawyer said King Abdullah "has the right to end the dispute" as the ban on women drivers was "based on a fatwa and not a final decree."

"There is a good portion of society that accepts that a woman would drive, but the problem is that the government still fears the extremists," said Huwaidar.

But "there is a close link between the religious establishment and the state -- they gave them the keys of the state, and that's why there is no political decision about women driving," she said.

MIDDLE EAST BUSINESS COMMENT & ANALYSIS

INTERNATIONAL. Unexpected developments can catch the herd wrong-footed and spark major movements when the masses scatter at the same time. When that occurs, those who resisted the herd may find themselves rewarded. We believe that we are approaching such a point.

INTERNATIONAL. This isn't about Netanyahu and Obama, and both know it. It is about the reconfiguration of a region the US cannot subdue and cannot leave. It is the essence of great power strategy: creating a balance of power in which the balancers are trapped into playing a role they don't want.

INTERNATIONAL. This isn't about Netanyahu and Obama, and both know it. It is about the reconfiguration of a region the US cannot subdue and cannot leave. It is the essence of great power strategy: creating a balance of power in which the balancers are trapped into playing a role they don't want.